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Mila'sExotic Plants & CuriositiesA living collection by Luminary OdditiesLuminary Oddities · Natural history & art
Uropyia meticulodina
Lepidoptera / Notodontidae
Uropyia meticulodina is a notodontid moth whose resting wing pattern resembles a rolled leaf. Bands of light and dark colour create an unusually convincing impression of curled surfaces, while the caterpillar has specialized posterior structures and feeding behaviour that changes during development.
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Schintlmeister described meticulodina as having a cooler, greenish or bluish cast relative to the warmer reddish appearance of melli. Its forewing discal spot is weak and diffuse; melli has a more conspicuous contrasting spot. [1]
Observations of reared larvae found that young caterpillars rested and fed on the underside of leaves before their first moult. Later stages were more often seen moving and feeding at leaf edges. Scanning-electron microscopy also recorded developmental differences in the mandibles, the notches of the upper lip and the silk-producing spinneret. [2]
A tethered flight-mill experiment compared specimens from Henan and Zhoushan. Uropyia meticulodina showed no significant difference between these samples in the tested flight-speed, distance and duration measures. [4]
In a 2025 study, computational shape-from-shading models reconstructed apparent raised and curled surfaces from a specimen photograph. The wing’s light-and-dark pattern supplies pictorial depth cues that contribute to its rolled-leaf appearance. [3]
Alexander Schintlmeister; Atalanta 33 · Accessed 2026-10-11
Liu and colleagues; Zoomorphology · Accessed 2026-10-11
Jospin, Porter, Boussaid, Bennamoun and Kelley; Journal of the Royal Society Interface · Accessed 2026-10-11
Zheng and colleagues; Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · Accessed 2026-10-11
Sources checked 2026-10-11. Illustrations · Luminary Oddities.
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